A woman from New Jersey has filed one of the most recent Nexium lawsuits over the drug’s alleged association with chronic kidney disease and other renal complications. The August 18th filing in the U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey, accuses AstraZeneca Pharmaceutical of marketing a defective and unreasonably dangerous product.

According to RxInjuryHelp.com, Nexium belongs to a class of heartburn medications called proton pump inhibitors. The drugs, which are available in both prescription and over-the-counter versions, were taken by some 15 million people in 2013. However, recent research suggest that 70% of proton pump inhibitor prescriptions are inappropriate, raising concerns that drugs like Nexium are being overused.

Plaintiff Claims AstraZeneca’s Nexium Testing Was Inadequate

According to the New Jersey lawsuit, the plaintiff was prescribed Nexium on multiple occasions from January 2011 through September 2014. She was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in July 2014, allegedly as due to her use of the medication. Among other things, the plaintiff claims that AstraZeneca failed to subject Nexium to adequate testing, and failed to provide doctors and patients with adequate warnings regarding its purported association with chronic kidney disease and other permanent side effects.

The lawsuit further alleges that, since coming on the market, Nexium and other proton pump inhibitors have been cited in numerous adverse event reports logged with the U.S. Food & Drug Administration, including reports of kidney injuries in patients who ingested Nexium.

“Since the introduction of PPIs to the US market in 1990, several studies have linked PPI use to serious adverse health outcomes, including hip fracture, pneumonia, clostridium difficile infection, acute interstitial nephritis, and acute kidney injury,” the complaint states. “A study from 2015 shows that acute kidney injuries increased 250 percent in elderly patients that were newly prescribed PPIs. The acute kidney injuries occurred within 120 days of the patients starting the PPIs.”

Additional studies cited in the lawsuit include a paper published in JAMA: Internal Medicine in January 2016 that linked proton pump inhibitors to a 20-to-50% increased risk of chronic kidney disease. The filing also highlights a second paper that appeared in the April 2016 issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, which suggested that proton pump inhibitor users had a 96% increased risk of developing kidney failure compared to patients who used alternative heartburn drugs,

Nexium Lawsuit Reviews

Bernstein Liebhard LLP is investigating legal claims on behalf of Nexium users who were diagnosed with serious kidney complications, including: